[Chuck37]

I have recently had to build a temporary office in a hotel room. I have a new laptop running XP to which I have connected to the Dell 2350 broadband wireless router that I was using in my home office. Attached to the router also is a Linksys network storage device into which I have two hard drives connected, as had also been done in my home office.

At home, the router was connected to a cable broadband connection, but in the hotel, I do not have that luxury...I only can connect my laptop to the hotel's WIFI service for internet access.

When I have the Ethernet cable plugged in from my router, I can access my hard drives fine. But, when I try to establish a wireless internet connection using my laptop's wireless card, the LAN no longer works.

Vice versa, if I get the LAN working, I cannot connect to the internet.

I re-set the router to be an access point, and not the gateway for the internet connection.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong, and what I need to do to get both working?

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does the hotel offer wired networking as well? a lot of them still have ethernet ports in the rooms

[dsenette]

does the hotel offer wired networking as well? a lot of them still have ethernet ports in the rooms

[Chuck37]

No, unfortunately, no ethernet ports available in the room.

[dsenette]

I re-set the router to be an access point, and not the gateway for the internet connection.

well...this may be something...since you would be using the router as a gateway to the network that supplies the hard drives... the router needs to be a gateway and issue DHCP on the lan so you can have an IP on the lan that corresponds to the hard drive's lan ip....

you should be having no problems using the wireless and the lan...UNLESS the hotel's wireless IP is in the same range as the LAN you've created

connect to the hotel wireless but not the Hard Drive's lan and press start, then run, then type "cmd" (without quotes), then type "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) and post the results

do the same when connected to the lan and not the wireless

[Chuck37]

Wireless info is as follows. I will need to send the wire Lan info once I can get it and log back onto this site.

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : LenovoLT
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : ip3networks.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink ™ Gigabit Ethern
et
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1C-25-94-1E-1F

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : ip3networks.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-21-5C-69-80-39
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.71.3.62
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.240.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.71.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.71.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.61.32.1
1.1.1.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, December 12, 2008 2:52:19 PM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, December 13, 2008 2:16:56PM

[Chuck37]

Here is the IP config with just the wired LAN active...

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : LenovoLT
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : router

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : router
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink ™ Gigabit Ethernet
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1C-25-94-1E-1F
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, December 12, 2008 3:49:38 PM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, December 13, 2008 3:49:38PM

[dsenette]

well....that's not it...

When I have the Ethernet cable plugged in from my router, I can access my hard drives fine. But, when I try to establish a wireless internet connection using my laptop's wireless card, the LAN no longer works

no longer works as in the NIC shows as disconnected? or no longer works as in you can't get to the hard drive deal?

how do you normally access the drive? by name?

[Chuck37]

I have to go view Network Places where the hard drives show up as folders.

I don't think the issue is with the hard drives. It's just that, if my laptop cannot communicate with the router, than, of course, I can't access the hard drives.

If I remove the Linksys connection to the router, I don't think that will make any difference.

It's just basically, when I am able to connect to the hotel's WIFI from my laptop, I cannot at the same time be connected to the LAN/router.

When I close the WIFI connection, then I can connect to the LAN/router. Never both at the same time here in my temporary office.

Also, sometimes, I even have to click the 'repair' function to get one or the other one to work properly, when I am changing back and forth between internet and LAN.

[dsenette]

It's just basically, when I am able to connect to the hotel's WIFI from my laptop, I cannot at the same time be connected to the LAN/router.

still not clear on this...is the LAN connection saying that it's disconnected or can you just not get to the resources attached to the router?

[Chuck37]

The LAN and laptop wireless both appear to be working usually, if just looking at the icons in the tray at the bottom of the screen.

But, I must have the LAN unplugged to get the wireless is working. When the wireless is working, and I plug the LAN back in, the wireless quits working and the LAN doesn't work either. If I disable the wireless card, the LAN will work.

Then, if I need to use wireless to get back on the internet, I must unplug the LAN again, and enable the wireless. Even after doing that, I usually also must use "repair" to actually get wireless to work again.

[dsenette]

still not answering me....

i'm ASSUMING by not working you mean that you can't get to the internet through the wireless when the lan is on and you can't get to the hard drive that's on the lan when the wireless is connected...correct?

[Chuck37]

Sorry. Yes, that is correct.

[dsenette]

do you know what the ip address is of the two hard drives?

[Chuck37]

No, not at the moment. Not sure how to find out.

[dsenette]

connect to the lan...and go to the "my network places" and see if the drives are there...if they are...what are they called?